Caleb Headley 2

09 Wednesday Oct 2013

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Appalachia, Caleb Headley, Fourteen Mile Creek, Henry Farley, history, Lincoln County, medicine, Sarah Headley, Ward Adkins, West Virginia, Will Headley, writing

The new “Mrs. Headley” — Sarah Farley — was born on May 26, 1849 to William Floyd and Elizabeth Jane (Clark) Jones-Farley in Logan County, (West) Virginia. She was a full 21 years younger than Caleb’s oldest child and barely older than his youngest child by his first wife. Her grandfather was Captain Henry Farley, who led an Indian raid down the Guyandotte River through present-day Logan County in the early 1790s and was one of the county’s earliest settlers.

Caleb and Sarah Headley had the following children: Lat. Headley, born May 1, 1866, died before 1870; John Timothy Headley, born April 20, 1867, married Emaline Susan Sias then Emarine Elkins in 1930, died March 29, 1956; Ida Cosby Headley, born March 23, 1869, married John Christian Henon Frye, died September 22, 1948; Caleb David Headley, born February 22, 1872, died about 1895; William Franklin “Will” Headley, born August 25, 1875, married Caroline Lucas, died January 1960; Margaret Headley, born March 28, 1878, married Zachary T. Neace, died 1911; and Ballard P. Headley, born April 14, 1880, married Claire D. Clark in 1924, died circa 1958.

Headley, a doctor, and Sarah, a midwife, combined to serve the medical needs of the community.

“Doctor Headley treated whatever ailed people,” said Ward Adkins, in a 2003 interview. “And Grandma Sarah was a midwife from the time she was young. She delivered way over a hundred babies, practically all of us. People paid them with whatever they had: chickens, garden stuff.”

In the 1870 Lincoln County Census (Harts Creek District, Household #16), Headley was listed as 62 years old, while Sarah was 27, John was 3 and Cosby was 1. Caleb had $160 worth of real estate and $350 of personal property.

Two years later, in 1872, Headley bought 145 acres of land valued at one dollar per acre from George Hager.

“Beginning at a chestnut oak, corner to Harman Stroud on the ridge between the Big Branch and the Sulphur Spring Branch,” according to the deed, “thence N. 20 W. 100 poles to a white oak and ash on the middle point of Big Branch, thence S. 87 E. 85 poles to a stake a corner to Daniel Messer, thence with his line, S. 70 E. 196 poles to a white oak and beech, a corner to Brumfield’s heirs lands, thence S. 5 W. 160 poles to a double beech, thence N. 55 W. 84 poles to a maple corner to Corbin Estep, thence with his line, S. 71 W. 43 poles to a locust, thence N. 45 W. 155 poles more or less and with Stroud’s calls to the beginning.”

In 1879, Headley purchased 62 acres worth one dollar per acre from a land company.

“Beginning at a poplar on the John Fry Branch,” reads the deed, “thence south 52 poles to a white oak S. 30 E. 40 poles to a ‘sour gum’ E. 70 W. 156 poles to a stake, N. 45 E. 153 poles to a poplar and beech in the old Hager Line, then with it S. 16 E. 77 poles to the beginning.”

In 1880, Caleb was listed in the Harts Creek District of Lincoln County as a 72-year-old physician. Interestingly, this was the first instance in which Headley, who claimed to have been a practicing physician for nearly fifty years in an interview conducted during the early 1880s, declared his occupation as anything other than farming.

“I know Will said he could cure cancer,” said Adkins. “He said he was born with a cancer on his stomach and he had to sleep on a pillow until he was four years old. He had to wait until that sore was large enough for his daddy to take it off. Will had a scar as big as a fifty-cent piece on his stomach. He showed it to me several times. He said, ‘That’s where Paw took the cancer off of me.’ Grandpaw Neace told me that, too. He took one off of some of their family. He died with his secret, though. He never did tell nobody what he knew.”

In 1881, Headley bought 150 acres of land worth two dollars per acre from G.W. Hager, giving him a total property acreage of 357.

The following year, he either purchased more land or surveyed his existing properties. Tax books record him with the following tracts: 210 acres worth two dollars per acre containing a $100 building; 200 acres worth $1.50 per acre; and 45 acres worth $1.50 per acre. In total, according to tax records, he owned 455 acres worth $888.

Around that time, Henry H. Hardesty published a biographical sketch on Headley and several of his neighbors in a Lincoln County history.

“Caleb Headley is now a prosperous farmer, owning 600 acres of good land on Fourteen-mile creek, a portion of which is heavily timbered with oak, poplar and pine; coal and iron ore in abundance. There is a fine sulphur spring upon the land, on the creek three miles from Guyan river, which has been visited by people from many parts of the United States, and it is pronounced of excellent medicinal quality by all.”

This sulfur spring, which provided the entire creek with a name and generated some interest as a spot for healing is still remembered by older residents of the area today.

“It was just up here around the curve from my house,” said Adkins. “It’s not there now. It’s been destroyed. It had a round rock and that rock was about two feet high and it was dressed all the way around. And someone had hollowed it out about two inches from the edge and it sat right down in that spring. People used to gather there when I was growing up to play marbles and pitch horseshoes. Dad used to send us up there to get him a bucket of water after we come out of the field. Sulfur is a blood purifier, they said.”

Not long after providing his biography to Hardesty, Caleb Headley passed away.

“Doctor Headley died in, I believe it was 1881,” said Adkins. “Will said his dad died when he was about six years old and he was born in August of 1875. I think he finally died of a Civil War wound.”

Tax records do not list Headley’s property as being in his estate until 1886.

In Search of Ed Haley 180

09 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, Appalachia, Brandon Kirk, feud, Green McCoy, Harts, Harts Creek, Henderson Dingess, Hollene Brumfield, James V. Henderson, John W Runyon, Milt Haley, Wild Bill, writing

Having satisfied my thirst for Brumfield family history, Brandon pulled out some great newspaper articles pertaining to the 1889 troubles. He began with one from the Ceredo Advance dated Wednesday, October 2, 1889, and titled “Disappointed Love Leads to a Desperate Double Crime in Lincoln County:”

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. September 27 – Word has just reached here of a sensational crime on Big Hart’s creek, in Lincoln county, 90 miles up the Guyandotte River. Al Brumfield, a newly married man, and his bride had spent the day with his wife’s parents some distance up the creek. Just at dusk, on their return, and when near their home, they were fired upon by a man who sprang from the bushes by the road-side. Mrs. Brumfield was shot in the head and fell to the ground unconscious. Her husband was shot in the right lung but managed to crawl to a neighbor’s for assistance.

The nearest physician, twenty-five miles distant, was summoned, but arrived too late to render the woman any assistance and she died in a few hours. The latest information is that Brumfield is also dying. He claims he recognized the assassin, but refuses to say who it was. It is the belief of the neighborhood that a suitor of Mrs. Brumfield, who failed to win her, is the assassin.

The article was full of errors but its implication of a single “assassin” with a personal attachment to Hollena Brumfield was interesting.

On Wednesday, October 9, 1889, Ceredo Advance ran a letter from “WILD BILL,” written on September 27. Wild Bill gave his address as Warren, West Virginia — a now extinct post office on Harts Creek below the mouth of Smoke House Fork.

ED. ADVANCE: — As you have had no communication from this place for some time I will give you a few items. There have been several cases of flux in this vicinity and two or three deaths. Farmers are busy saving fodder and cutting up corn. Our neighborhood was thrown into a state of confusion last Sunday evening about 3 o’clock. One mile from this place some low down villain attempted to assassinate Mr. Brumfield and wife. They had been on a visit to Mrs. Brumfield’s father, Mr. Henderson Dingess, and as they returned home they were shot from the brush, one ball striking Mrs. Brumfield just in front of the right ear and ranging around the cheek bone and striking her nose producing a serious but not fatal wound, and one ball striking Mr. Brumfield in the right arm below the elbow producing only a flesh wound. They were cared for and dressed by Drs. Moss, of Cabell county, and Hudgins, of Logan county. They will recover. Mr. Brumfield is a prominent merchant living at Hart, W.Va., and is a good citizen, highly esteemed by his neighbors. His wife is a noble and kind-hearted lady and beloved by all her acquaintances. They have a large train of friends who sympathize with them in their distress. The object of the attempted murder is believed to be robbery. The good and law-abiding citizens should unite and rid the earth of such miserable miscreants.

Based on this September 27 letter, written a week after the ambush at Thompson Branch, there were two theories regarding the motive for the crime: one, it was done by a jealous suitor; two, it was an attempted robbery. In either case, this second article again referred to the attacker in the singular sense…sort of.

By October 24, locals had deduced Haley and McCoy’s guilt, captured them in Kentucky and murdered them at Green Shoal. WILD BILL was apparently unaware about this latter act because on October 25 he again sent a letter to the Ceredo Advance (printed on November 6).

ED. ADVANCE – Mr. Allen Brumfield, who was shot in the arm near this place about a month ago, has got about well. His wife, who was shot at the same time, is improving very slowly, but she will get well. The perpetrators of the awful crime — Milton Haley and Green McCoy — have been arrested. Haley did the shooting and McCoy is accused of being an accomplice, but the latter will be released by turning state’s evidence against Haley. The law should be enforced against such persons to the utmost extent. Our neighborhood is in a state of intense excitement and may terminate in a deadly feud between two parties…

[Since the above was written a mob took Haley and McCoy from the officers and killed them. — ED]

God only knows what our country will come to, as the deadly Winchester is fast becoming the ruling factor in our land.

Well just who was this WILD BILL? He seems to have access to a lot of information regarding the growing feud on Harts Creek. Maybe it was “Detective Wild Bill,” who history records as a participant in the Hatfield-McCoy Feud in the nearby Tug Valley.

A story featured in the Ceredo Advance titled “A Visit to the Lincoln County Battle Field” and dated Wednesday, November 13, 1889, was most interesting:

Mr. J.V. Henderson, editor of the Charleston Nonpareil, was in this city today [Nov. 7], having just returned from the scene of the recent trouble in Lincoln county. He went to get a full description of the places and the causes which led to the trouble for the metropolitan dailies. Mr. Henderson went into the house where Green McCoy and Milton Haley were murdered, and made a map of the house and its surroundings. He also made a map of the Hart’s Creek country, giving the location of each faction — the Brumfields and the Runyons. While going up Hart’s Creek he was met by two men acting as pickets, armed with Winchester rifles, who asked him where he was going and what was his business. Mr. Henderson told them that he was a newspaper man and wanted to get information regarding the trouble in that vicinity. They told him that they would give him one hour to get off the creek and leave the country.

Mr. Henderson took the hint and left at once. He says he learns that both factions are heavily armed and are expecting an attack at any time. Each side has pickets out ready to give the alarm in the event of hostile movements by the other side. The road up Hart’s Creek is blockaded, and travelers through that region avoid the place.

Unfortunately, few issues of the aforementioned Charleston Nonpareil survive in libraries today. Brandon later located copies of the Nonpareil for February and May of 1889 and February and June of 1890 — the times just prior to and just after the trouble — but none for the fall of 1889, which would have maybe mapped the murder site and the location of the feudists’ homes. There was one interesting development: according to The Cabell County Record, Mr. J.V. Henderson, “one of the best known figures in West Virginia newspaper work,” died at the Spencer insane asylum in 1898 at the ripe age of 43.

In Search of Ed Haley 179

08 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Bob Adkins, Boney Lucas, Brandon Kirk, Charley Brumfield, crime, feud, genealogy, history, Lawrence Kirk, Paris Brumfield, Ray Kirk, West Virginia, writing

After about thirty minutes of talking with Brandon, I was convinced that he loved the families of Harts and was wrapped up in its history. He was not only serious business but he really — I mean really — knew his stuff.

Brandon flipped a few pages in his photo album, then pointed to a picture of a black-bearded, broad-shouldered giant of a man and said, “That’s Paris Brumfield.” I’d heard a lot about him from Bob Adkins and Lawrence Kirk — and never forgot what they said about him being killed by his own son. He was Brandon’s great-great-great-grandfather.

According to the Lambert Collection, Paris Brumfield was one of the most feared loggers in the Guyandotte Valley – a man who “gloried in shooting people.” He frequently stirred up trouble in the town of Guyandotte with his friends, Jerome Shelton of West Hamlin and Pete Dingess of Harts Creek. Shelton often got drunk and wandered through the streets of Guyandotte screaming “I am God!” and other obscenities. He climbed on ladders and pretended to make speeches to taunt officers and citizens. Wild cheering from loggers always followed his cry of “Millions bow down to me!” Wilburn Bias was the only marshal in Guyandotte who Paris and his gang feared, although others like a Mr. Fuller sometimes tried to arrest him. One marshal, J. “Doc” Suiter, once came to Brumfield’s hotel room to make an arrest, but a brawl ensued in which both men crashed through a window. At some point, while rafting on the Guyan River, Paris slammed his raft into Doc’s after seeing that it was fouled on some shoals.

Brumfield was a real rabble-rouser. Not only did he drink heavily and abuse his wife: in the late 1870s he took a mistress for himself. This woman, one Keziah Ramey, originally from the Kiah’s Creek area of Wayne County, moved near Paris at Harts and quickly produced him four children. Paris was a reported murderer as well, according to local history. There are rumors about him killing pack-peddlers and someone named Charlie Hibbits (whose body was put on the “Ha’nt Rock”). Reportedly, he also murdered a man who disturbed a fiddler playing his favorite song, “Golden Slippers”. These stories are likely untrue, as the only murder positively linked to him was his shooting of a local man named Boney Lucas.

Bob Adkins had told me about it. “They had a fight right there at the mouth of West Fork and Boney got loose and he run through the creek there,” Bob had said a few years earlier. “And Paris’ daughter Rat, she run and got the gun and brought it to Paris and, by george, he shot Lucas with a Winchester right across the creek. Lucas tried to get away.” Brandon’s grandfather Ray Kirk said the trouble was “over logs,” while Lawrence Kirk said it was brought on by arguments between their children at school. Either way, their fatal confrontation occurred at the Narrows of Harts Creek, where Al Brumfield later built his infamous log boom. Paris had gone to a store on the creek with his daughter when he noticed Lucas working there in a timber crew. He and Lucas “had words,” then Lucas attacked him, initially with the butt-end of his axe. In no time, one of Brumfield’s arms was almost completely severed from his shoulder — courtesy of Lucas’ axe. Paris hollered for his daughter to give him a pistol that he’d tucked into a grocery bag, then used it to shoot Boney in self-defense.

Life in the Brumfield home was difficult. At one point, during the fall of 1891, Ann Brumfield fled to her son Charley’s home for protection. I knew from Bob Adkins what had happened next.

On November 11, 1891, the Ceredo Advance reported: “The noted desperado of Lincoln county — Paris Brumfield — was shot five times by his son Charles, on Tuesday of last week [Nov. 3]. Paris was drinking and attempted to take the life of his wife, when the son interfered with the above result. The wounded man lived only a few hours after having been shot. Paris killed several men during his life and it is said that no man could get the drop on him, but finally one of his own flesh and blood ended his career. The son has not been arrested, and probably will not be.”

In 1892, The Logan County Banner reported: “We think the papers in the State have been a little harsh with Paris Brumfield. From what we have learned we do not blame his son for killing him in the defense of his mother, and we deeply sympathize with the young man in having to imbue his hands in the blood of his father. Paris Brumfield was an overbearing man and dangerous when in whisky, yet he was surrounded by a people not noted for angelic sweetness of temper, and he was driven to many an act of which he was ashamed. There was, however, a good side to the man. He was generous and brave, and no one was ever turned [away in] hunger from his door; and, remembering his kindness to the poor, we are willing to draw the curtain over his many grievous faults.”

Brandon said many old-timers around Harts heard that Paris’ ghost would jump up behind Charley every time he got on a horse to go anywhere.

U.B. Buskirk: West Virginia Timber Boss 2

30 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Logan, Timber

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Betty Shoals, Cincinnati, Cole and Crane Company, Dave Straton, Dr. Bedford Moss, Fred B. Lambert, genealogy, Henry Clay Ragland, Hinchman House, history, John Thomas Moore, Kentucky, Logan, Louisville, Pecks Mill, rafting, Roughs of Guyan, Standard Mercantile Store, timbering, Urias Buskirk, West Virginia, writing

The Peter Morgan affair, as well as subsequent related events, had a profound impact on young U.B. Buskirk, who would become Logan’s wealthiest citizen in future years, but he chose not to divulge any information about it to Fred B. Lambert, regional historian. Instead, he discussed another murder involving Dave Straton, the son of Maj. William Straton of Logan.

“Once in 1870 or 1871, 200 or 300 rafters came to Barboursville. All got drunk. There was no room in the hotels. There were many fights and a wild time generally. Scott Lusher and Dave Straton were fighting in the street. Then John Thomas Moore was killed by Dave Straton. John Thomas Moore owned the Burnet House, a two-story building, and kept a hotel and bar room. It was near the Flour Mill at the corner of Water Street and Main Street (exactly where the First Methodist Church now stands). He had rented the upstairs for a dance.”

After 1870, Urias and Louisa Buskirk divorced and young U.B. went to stay with Dr. Bedford Moss in Barboursville.

“My parents fell out and Dr. Moss of Barboursville wanted a boy so I went to live with him,” Buskirk said. “This was about 1874 (September). I remember Henry Poteet, the Thornburgs, Baileys. John Wigal was my teacher. I went there April 1874.”

Throughout the 1870s, then, Buskirk lived in Dr. Moss’ home and received a Cabell County education. His father spent the decade in and out of court over the Morgan murder, while his mother married twice: first to Thomas Buchanan, a Civil War veteran, in 1874 and then to Henry Clay Ragland, future editor of the Logan County Banner, in 1878.

In 1880, young U.B. Buskirk left Dr. Moss and returned to Logan County.

“I left there on July 2, 1880 and came back to Logan,” he said.

After his return to Logan, Buskirk took a teaching position at Pigeon Creek for one year, then used the money he saved to pursue a life in business. His father, a local businessman, may have encouraged this venture.

“In 1881 I was a merchant at Logan,” he said. “I worked at this for 25 years. I bought deer skins, even bear skins, ginseng, etc.”

By the early 1890s, Buskirk was Logan’s wealthiest citizen, with business interests in timber, coal, and real estate. In 1892, he opened the Standard Mercantile Store (later the Guyan Mercantile Company). He served on the town council and built a livery on Hudgins Street. In 1896, he began construction of a mansion at 404 Cole Street.

“I first engaged in timbering, pushing timber into the river, for C. Crane and Co., about 1897,” he told Lambert. “They bought only portable timber. They had three double band mills in Cincinnati. They were in business 25 or 30 years before that.”

In his interview with Lambert, Buskirk showed a real familiarity with the timber industry — particularly its rafting era — as it existed in the Guyandotte Valley in the late 1800s. He sprinkled his stories with memories of people and geography.

“Rafting was rarely done beyond the mouth of Little Huff, just up above Ep Justice’s,” he said. “Most of the Justice family came to Logan. Ben lived on Main Island Creek. He moved to Huntington and died there.”

The upper Guyan Valley was difficult to navigate on rafts because of two geographical features, namely the “Roughs” and the “Betty Shoals.”

“The ‘Roughs of Guyan’ extended 14 miles from the mouth of Gilbert Creek to the forks of the river as the junction of the Clear Fork and the Guyan,” Buskirk said. “The Betty Shoals were just below the mouth of Gilbert Creek. A preacher Fontaine drowned there. His body was recovered.”

Peck’s Mill was a familiar site to raftsmen as they plied their way downriver toward the timber market in Guyandotte and Huntington.

“Peck’s Mill was built by Mr. White in the late ’60s and sold to J.E. Peck Sr. and Ed Peck,” Buskirk said. “R.W. Peck Sr. was sheriff in 1880.”

Logan County rafstmen heading toward the Ohio River usually made it to the Harts area of southern Lincoln County on their first day of travel.

“At the end of the first day’s run, raftsmen put up at Big Ugly, seven miles below Harts Creek — on the right going down,” Buskirk said. “Rafts ran 8-9 miles per hour coming down and reached Logan in 2-3 hours.”

A little further downriver, near West Hamlin, was the “Falls of Guyan,” an actual waterfall and hindrance to river traffic.

“The Falls were dangerous but were removed, as was Dusenberry Dam,” Buskirk said. “The Jordan Sands shifted. Men sometimes had to cut through the sands here and elsewhere to get pushboats through them.”

Upon reaching the town of Guyandotte, loggers sold their rafts and took their money to local saloons and hotels.

“Mrs. Carroll at Guyandotte kept 3-4 businessmen but not raftsmen,” Buskirk said.

Unfortunately, Fred Lambert’s interview ends on that note, leaving no personal record of his later life. Actually, his interview stops at the very moment when Buskirk was at a high point in his personal, economic, and political life. This makes sense considering that Lambert was probably most interested in his genealogy and connections to the timber industry, not his biography.

As a result, we must rely on local historians to briefly conclude the man’s life story.

At the end of 1897, Buskirk completed construction of a mansion at 404 Cole Street in Logan — known in later years as the Hinchman House — then promptly went to Cincinnati and married Frances “Fantine” Humphrey.

Mr. and Mrs. Buskirk settled in their Logan mansion, where they had three children: Voorheis (Buskirk) McNab, born January 2, 1899, Dr. Joseph Randolph Buskirk, born July 30, 1900, and Dr. James Humphrey Buskirk.

On May 15, 1909, Buskirk sold his home in Logan to Ettie Robinson (the wife of former sheriff and councilman, S.B. Robinson) and moved to Cincinnati. He kept in touch with his friends in Logan and died a wealthy man on March 14, 1956 at the age of 94 in Louisville, Kentucky.

U.B. Buskirk: West Virginia Timber Boss 1

29 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Logan, Timber

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36th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, C.R. Williams, civil war, crime, Frank Buskirk, Fred B. Lambert, genealogy, Guy Lawson, history, Holland, Logan, Logan Wildcats, Peter Morgan, Thomas Buchanan, Thomas Buskirk, Urias Buskirk, Urias Guy Buskirk, West Virginia, writing

In the early decades of the twentieth century, Fred B. Lambert, local historian and educator, interviewed Urias Beckley Buskirk, a former resident of Logan, West Virginia, who had amassed a great deal of wealth in coal and timber. Buskirk spoke primarily of his family history and the timber industry as it existed around the turn of the century.

“I was born November 22, 1862 in the City of Logan,” Buskirk began. “My father was Urias Buskirk, a Pennsylvania Dutchman of Erie Co., Pa. My grandfather was Joseph Van Buskirk who lived in Erie Co., Pa., with one or two older children. My mother was Louisa Goings, of Lawrence Co., Kentucky, a daughter of William Goings.”

In early Logan County records, Urias “Guy” Buskirk, father to U.B., was listed as a shoemaker (1856), bootmaker (1859), and merchant (1860).

“We are a family of shoemakers,” the younger Buskirk told Lambert. “My father’s grandfather and all of his boys were shoemakers, even in Holland. All had a big demand. My father did that here — probably made 10 cents an hour clear.”

Urias Buskirk married Louisa (Goings) West on October 6, 1856 in Logan County. Louisa was a daughter of Alex and Mary (Skidmore) Goings. She was first married to James West. The Buskirks had six children: James Bilton, born about 1853, Ann Brooke, born about 1857, John L., born about 1859, Urias Beckley (the subject of this sketch), George, born about 1866, and Robert W. “Bob”, born about 1869.

“I am a brother of James Bilton Buskirk, a hotel man of Logan, postmaster and storekeeper,” Buskirk told Lambert. “My sister was Ann Buskirk who married James A. Sidebottom of Boone County. One of my brothers was John Buskirk who, at the time of his death, lived at Apple Grove in Mason County but was buried at Logan.”

Buskirk gave more detailed genealogy for his younger brothers, George and Bob.

“My brother George married Mollie Henderson, a daughter of the late James R. Henderson of Montgomery Co., Va., a sheriff,” he said. “Their daughter Mattie died single while Tina married John Maynard and had two children. My brother Bob married Moldah Hamilton. They had no children. Then he married a widow with two children from Arkansas. They had one son, Robert, Jr., who was born the day after his father’s death.

In recounting events of his early life to Lambert, Buskirk could have drawn on the two sensational events of his childhood: the Civil War, which ended in 1865, and his father’s murder of Peter Morgan in 1870. More than likely, he was too young to have had any personal memories of the war, but his father, a private in Company E of the 45th Battalion Virginia Infantry, surely told him stories, as did his relatives Thomas V., a private in Company G of the 16th Virginia Cavalry, and Francis S., a private in Company D of the 36th Virginia Infantry (Logan Wildcats).

Or maybe not.

For whatever reason, Buskirk limited his childhood memories to a single but interesting line: “When I was a small boy, a bear was chased through the streets of Logan.”

In the spring of 1870, Urias Buskirk, the father of U.B. and a merchant in Logan, shot and killed Peter D. Morgan, a former Logan County constable and sergeant in the Logan Wildcats. Morgan was reportedly engaged in an affair with Buskirk’s wife and had threatened to kill him. In an 1874 trial, Buskirk pled self-defense for the murder in front of a hung jury at Wayne. A Cabell County jury finally acquitted him of the crime in 1879.

A newspaper story from the period offers some insight into the murder.

“In May, 1870, the community here was startled by the intelligence that a murder had been committed — a cold-blooded, deliberate murder,” the Democratic Banner of Guyandotte, West Virginia, reported on Thursday, August 27, 1874. “The murdered man was Peter D. Morgan; the murderer supposed to be Urias Buskirk. Buskirk had a bad reputation, and on account of his troubles had been compelled to leave; he had a pretty little wife, and Morgan had been in a liaison with her during his absence as well as after his return. Buskirk had threatened to kill Morgan, and on the evening he was killed said that he should not be surprised at any time to hear of Morgan’s brains being blow out. One night Buskirk was at Morgan’s store with a rifle, Morgan was at the counter waiting on some customers, and while standing there some one standing outside the window, with deadly aim, sent a bullet crashing through his brain. The blood gushed over the lady’s face he was waiting on and over the goods, and he fell to the floor a corpse. Buskirk, a few minutes afterward, went to a doctor who lived near and told him ‘he heard a gun go off, and should not wonder if some one was killed.’ He was arrested on suspicion, but escaped from jail and remained for two years returning in 1872. He was then re-arrested, and had a trial but the jury disagreed.”

“His counsel moved for a change of venue and his trial moved to Wayne Court-house, where it took place, after several postponements, last March, and resulted in another disagreement,” the story continued. “He is now out on bail, Morgan, who was killed left a very pretty widow, and since his death she has been living a rather fast life, having had an amour with one C.R. Williams, prosecuting attorney of the county, who was also one of the principal witnesses against Buskirk. On Tuesday morning, Guy Lawson, brother of Mrs. Morgan, met Williams and accused him of debauching his sisters; from words they rapidly came to blows; then pistols were drawn, and an indiscriminate firing begun. The friends of the parties rush in; C.R. Williams shot Lawson, and Frank Buskirk, brother of the one who is accused of murder, took up for him, and shot both of the Williamses. It was at first reported that C.R. Williams and Lawson were both killed, but that was a mistake.”

“Lawson was shot in the left breast near the heart, and is not likely to recover; C.R. Williams was shot under the left eye, the ball passing down into his mouth, knocking out several of his teeth; R.B. Williams shot in the left leg, and a man named Dingess behind the left ear, but the ball did not enter the skull,” the story concluded. “The doctors think all will recover except Lawson. In the height of the affray Thomas Buskirk appeared on the ground with his wife, and stopped the fight by jumping right in between the combatants and swearing he would kill the next man who fired a shot. He was greatly commended for his action, as the combatants had friends who had rushed to the scene — many of them armed — and it seemed likely there would be a bloody affray. Several parties have been arrested. Most of the original combatants were under the influence of whisky. It is a mixed up affair, and we should not be surprised to hear of a renewal of the combat.”

In Search of Ed Haley 178

29 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Al Brumfield, Boney Lucas, Brandon Kirk, George Fry, George W. Ferrell, Green McCoy, Henderson Dingess, history, Hollene Brumfield, John Hartford, John W Runyon, Milt Haley, Paris Brumfield, The Lincoln County Crew, writing

After a few hours of digesting this material, I met Brandon Kirk in the hall near the copier. Brandon, a neatly groomed young man wearing a tie, was freighted down with satchels. We introduced ourselves and were soon in the study room where Brandon started fishing through his bags and pulling out letters, notebooks, folders and photo albums. Within a few minutes, the table was covered. It was as if someone had walked up with a giant garbage bag full of papers and dumped it all out in front of me.

One of the first things Brandon showed me was a small account of Milt Haley’s murder titled “The Brumfield-McCoy Feud”, which was originally published in a 1926 edition of Lambert’s Llorrac.

The Brumfield-McCoy Feud took place in the month of September, about 1888, some three miles up Hart’s Creek. Hollena Brumfield and her husband, Allen Brumfield, had been visiting Henderson Dingess, father of Mrs. Brumfield, one Sunday and were about two miles below Mr. Dingess’ on their way home. Green McCoy and Milt Haley laid in wait for them. Mr. and Mrs. Brumfield were riding down the creek, Mrs. Brumfield being on the same horse behind her husband. McCoy and Haley began shooting at them, one bullet striking Mr. Brumfield in the arm, and the other tearing away a portion of Mrs. Brumfield’s face, disfiguring her for life. Mr. Brumfield jumped from his horse and ran, and in that way escaped further injury. McCoy afterwards told that they were bribed by John Runyons with a barrel of flour and a side of bacon to McCoy, and twenty-five dollars in money to [Haley]. The murderers escaped into Kentucky but were captured a little later and brought back. Allen Brumfield supplemented the reward offered by the state with one of his own.

It seems the cause of the trouble was bad feeling between John Runyons and Al Brumfield. Runyons had a store and saloon at the mouth of Hart’s Creek. Brumfield had a store on Guyan River about a fourth of a mile below Hart, on the south side of the Guyan and sold whiskey on a houseboat. John Dingess [Mrs. Brumfield’s brother] was a bartender.

McCoy and Haley were brought back and kept over night at the house of George Fry. The next morning a number of men, presumably Brumfield’s friends came in, and the two prisoners were shot and killed.

Along with the above article was another version of “The Lincoln County Crew”, which gave George (and not Tom) Ferrell as the author.

Come all young men and ladies, come fathers, mothers, too;

I’ll relate to you the history of the Lincoln County crew.

Concerning bloody rows, and many a thieving deed,

Dear friend, pray lend attention to these few lines I say.

It was in the month of August all on a very fine day;

Allen Brumfield he got wounded they say by Milt Haley.

But Brumfield couldn’t believe it, nor hardly thought it so;

He said it was McCoy who shot that fatal blow.

They shot and killed Boney Lucas, a sober and innocent man,

And left his wife and children, to do the best they can.

They wounded Rufus Stowers, although his life was saved;

And he seemed to shun the grog shop, since he stood so near his grave.

Allen Brumfield he recovered, some weeks and months had past;

It was at the house of George Fry, these men they met at last.

Green McCoy and Milt Haley, about the yard did walk;

They seemed to be uneasy and no one wished to talk.

And then they went into the house, and sat down by the fire,

And little did they think, dear friends, they had met their final hour.

The sting of death was near them, _________________________

A few words passed between them concerning a row before.

The people some got frightened, began to rush out of the room;

When a ball from some one’s pistol laid the prisoners in the tomb.

Their friends then gathered ’round them, their wives to weep and wail;

Tom Ferrell was arrested, and soon confined to jail.

The butchers talked of lynching him, but that was all the fear;

And when the day of trial came, Tom Ferrell he came clear.

And then poor Paris Brumfield, relation to the rest,

He got three balls shot through him, they went straight through his breast.

The death of these few men have caused great trouble in our land;

Men to leave their wives and children to do the best they can.

Lincoln County’s still at war, they never, never cease;

Oh, could I only, only see my land once more in peace.

I composed this as a warning, a warning to all men;

Your pistols will cause trouble, on that you may depend.

In the bottom of the whiskey glass, the lurking devil dwells;

It burns the hearts of those who drink, and sends their soul to hell.

Anthony Lawson founds Lawsonville

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in African American History, Logan

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Andrew Bierne, Ann Lawson, Anthony Lawson, Appalachia, England, history, Logan, Logan County, Oceana, slavery, U.S. South, West Virginia, writing

Almost two hundred years ago, an Englishman made his way into the Guyandotte Valley and soon found himself fully engaged in the fur trading business and the creation of a new county.

Anthony Lawson was born on October 31, 1785 in Stanton, Northumberland, England. He was the son of Anthony and Margaret (Carse) Lawson. On May 26, 1806, Lawson married Ann Bilton, a daughter of Lewis and Jane Bilton, at Saint Helens Church in Longhorsley Parish, Northumberland. Ann was born on March 17, 1783 in Fieldhead, England.

In the early summer of 1817, Anthony and his family left England for America aboard the ship Active. “They left England on account of religious persecution,” according to the late Dr. Sidney B. Lawson, who spoke some years ago with historian Fred B. Lambert. Accompanying Lawson were his wife and four children: John Lawson, born in 1807 in Woodcraft, Northumberland; Lewis Bilton Lawson, born in 1808 in Stanhope, Northumberland; James B. Lawson, born in 1808 in Northumberland; and Anthony Lawson II, born in 1813.

On July 12, 1817, the Lawson family arrived at Philadelphia. They settled in Alexandria, Virginia, where Anthony’s uncle, John Lawson, operated a store on Cameron Street. While there, Ann gave birth to a fifth child named George Wilborn Lawson in 1818.

At that time, according to Ragland’s History of Logan County (1896), Lawson was persuaded to move to the Guyandotte Valley. “Col. Andrew Bierne, of Lewisburg, soon made his acquaintance, and induced him to come to the wilds of Guyandotte River and engage in the fur and ginseng trade,” Ragland wrote. “Mr. Lawson first settled near the present site of Oceana, where he remained about four years and then moved to the present site of Logan C.H.”

At Logan, which was then called the “Islands of Guyandot” and situated in Cabell County, Lawson ran a mercantile store. “Anthony had many buying and selling trips to Philadelphia,” writes James Avis of Albuquerque, New Mexico. “He would travel by horseback to the town of Guyandotte and from there by boat to Philadelphia. It is believed that he would visit with relatives living in Philadelphia.”

In 1824, when Logan County was formed from Cabell, Lawson served on the first County Court. His store was chosen as the seat of government for the new county. He also donated land for the construction of a courthouse. Reportedly, Logan was originally named Lawsonville but later had its name shortened to Lawnsville. Later still, it became Aracoma, then Logan Court House.

In 1830, Lawson was listed in the Logan County Census with his wife and four children, as well as two slaves (one female aged 10-24 and one male aged 0-10). His oldest son, John, was enumerator of the county census.

In 1840, Lawson was listed in the Logan County Census with his wife, son Anthony II, and three slaves. In that same year, sons John and James were also living in the county, with no slaves.

In 1847, Lawson became ill while on a return trip from Philadelphia. He was taken from a boat at Guyandotte, now Huntington’s east end, where he died of cholera on May 20. He was buried in the city cemetery. “Col. Anthony Lawson Sr. — Logan County — died at Guyandot aged upwards of 60 on his way home from Philadelphia,” the Richmond Whig wrote on June 17, 1847. “He often spoke of his birthplace as the vicinity of Alnwick Castle, the seat of the Percies in Yorkshire, England. He accumulated a large fortune which he left his children.”

On December 27, 1847, Ann Lawson was murdered by two of her slaves in Logan County. “Ann was mending a shirt for one of the slaves so that he and another slave could go to town for supplies,” Avis writes. “Thinking that they could be free after Anthony’s death, the negro she was mending the shirt for struck her on the head with an iron poker and she died.” After the murder, the slaves robbed Lawson. “The slave knew that money was kept in one of the drawers in the bureau,” according to Avis. “The poker was again used to pry open the drawer and take the money.” Two slaves named Bill and Hardin were accused of the murder. “The one that killed her was hanged, probably on the courthouse lawn,” Avis writes. “The other slave was severely punished.”

In Search of Ed Haley 172

20 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley, Music

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Anthony Riggs, Barboursville, fiddler, fiddling, Fred B. Lambert, George Stephens, Guyandotte River, history, Morton Milstead, music, Percival S. Drown, Samp Johnson, writing

The next morning, I went to see the Lambert Collection at the Morrow Library in Huntington, West Virginia. According to information at the library, the late Fred B. Lambert (1873-1967), a schoolteacher and administrator, had spent “at least sixty years of his life collecting information about West Virginia history” into a 500-notebook collection, mostly focusing on Cabell, Lincoln, Wayne, and Logan Counties. His notes on fiddling and old-time music were incredibly detailed. In some cases, he documented the first time a tune arrived in the Guyandotte Valley. Incredibly, none of his work was published outside of The Llorrac, an old high school yearbook from the 1920s.

As I flipped through his notebooks, it was difficult to keep my focus — there were stories about murders, genealogy, and life on the river. I took great interest in the stories about early fiddlers in the Guyan Valley. It helped put Ed — at least his early years — into a sort of regional context, the culmination of years of musical evolution. Any one of the mid-nineteenth century Guyan fiddlers may have actually known Ed Haley or, more likely, his father Milt.

In the 1830s and 1840s, according to Lambert’s research, George Stephens was a dominant fiddler in the Cabell County towns situated at or near the mouth of the Guyandotte River.

“George Stephens was a fiddler of wider reputation than most of those old time artists of the ‘fiddle and the bow,'” wrote one Percival S. Drown in a 1914 letter. “In his repertoire was ‘Bonaparte’s Retreat from Moscow,’ ‘Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine,’ ‘Cold, Frosty Morning,’ ‘Puncheon Floor,’ ‘Possum Creek,’ ‘Pop Goes the Weasel,’ ‘Pretty Betty Martin,’ ‘Carry Me Back to Old Virginia,’ ‘Hail Columbia,’ and ‘Star Spangled Banner.’ He had another tune and words ‘Big John, Little John, Big John Bailey.’ The tune Stephens seemed to throw himself away most on was the ‘Peach Tree.’ The meter and time governing this tune permitted its use and adaptation for dance music, and applying a long drawn bow with correct harmony and concord of sound, he carried the listener away in dreamy thought and recollection.

“When about midnight after the day of the ‘quilting,’ ‘Corn Husking,’ and ‘Log Rolling,’ when the ‘dance was on,’ Stephens, well-liquored up on Dexter Rectified, would have his face turned over his right shoulder apparently as much asleep as awake, but never missing a note of the ‘Peach Tree’, while the dancers would be ‘hoeing down’ for dear life. All at once he would order ‘Promenade to Seats’, cease playing, adjust himself in his seat and exclaim with energy ‘if I aint a lilter damme.’ Seemingly he was suddenly inspired with an exalter opinion of his greatness as a fiddler. As much as to say at the same time ‘and don’t you forget it.’ Then he might resen his bow and break out with a few stanzas of ‘Puncheon Floor’ or a tune he called ‘Soap Suds Over the Fence,’ to be followed by a slow tune so everyone could march to the supper table in the kitchen, across the yard (It was a common thing in those dear old times, for the kitchen to be detached from the ‘big house’).”

Samp Johnson was another top local fiddler, according to Percival Drown.

“‘Samp’ Johnson was the first fiddler I heard play ‘Arkansas Traveler’. One of his favorite places to play was at McKendree’s Tavern in Barboursville [on Main Street]. His favorite for playing was during Court days, when fiddler’s drinks were full and plentiful. The sun [was] full at 2 o’clock that day. Court day. The Town was full of visitors, chiefly ‘hayseed’, most of whom were fully equipped for home when they could tear themselves away from ‘Samp’ Johnson’s music. I well remember the day. McKendree’s second story porch was crowded with the audience. Roll Bias, who was a character in his day, lived far up Guyan River. He usually had business ‘at Court’. He was prosperous, in a way. I think he paid for all the drinks flowing from the attraction furnished by Johnson’s music in the street. While endowed with good common sense he could neither write his own or any other name. Poor ‘Samp’ Johnson came to his death at the Falls of Guyan when driving logs at high tide of the river, date not far from the time (1852) of my leaving the State.”

Another great fiddler in that era was Anthony Riggs.

“Anthony Riggs’ favorite tune that I more distinctly remember than others he played was called ‘Annie Hays,'” Drown wrote. “It was that fiddler’s favorite tune and one to suit the step and time for reels, and other ‘figures’ so called. Like all fiddlers of his class, he played ‘Nachez Under the Hill’, now known as ‘Turkey in the Straw.'”

Morton Milstead of Ohio “would come over to Cabell, stay around a few days, in the early 30s, I heard it said, and played the fiddle for drinks, mostly,” Drown wrote. “Milstead was rated as a high-class musician, as I recollect the talk of him. Never heard Milstead play but once, and I well remember now after a lapse of 65 or 70 years that his performance was much below that of George Stephens, Anthony Riggs, or ‘Samp’ Johnson, from my viewpoint at least.”

In Search of Ed Haley 171

18 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Appalachia, Ashland, blind, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, genealogy, history, Kentucky, Lawrence Haley, life, Mona Haley, Pat Haley, writing

“So when Larry and I got there, my mother-in-law, she was the one opened the door. I fell in love with her right away. And I didn’t see Ed until the next day. He was in bed and he was also hard-of-hearing and he didn’t hear us come in. Mom led us inside and, of course, Jack’s wife Patsy had the house very clean.”

One of the first things they did after arriving was eat a meal.

“Mom asked Lawrence, she said, ‘’awrencey boy, are you hungry?’ He said, ‘We’re starving, Mom.’ Well, Mom called upstairs and told Pat and Jack that we was here and they came down and Mom told Patsy we were hungry and Pat said, ‘Well, we don’t have much ready to eat. Would you like sausage and eggs?’ Well, I thought that was fine. But when these little patties came up… There was an oilcloth on the table — everything was clean and nice but the silverware was in a Mason jar in the middle of the table. I was just amazed that nobody set the table like I had been used to. I’d never seen sausage fried black. After dinner, they told us they had the bedroom upstairs fixed up for us. My mother-in-law had bought a new bedspread and new doilies for the dresser and Patsy had bought a lamp and some doilies and a picture for the wall. She’d really tried to fix up the room and make it nice for us. Mom had bought a very nice wardrobe and a dresser. The bed was Mom’s. The other furniture had belonged to Patsy and Jack.”

The next morning, Pat first met Ed.

“He came into the dining room and I was in the dining room, me and Larry. Larry just said, ‘Pop, this is Patricia.’ He just, you know, said, ‘Howdy do.’ And I went up to him to shake his hand. Larry had told me that I would have to go to him. If you looked at Ed Haley, it looked as though he was looking right at you. When I got up to him, Larry put his hand on my head and told him I was as short as Mom. Larry had told me that Pop would put his hands on me and check my head and face and my arms to see what kind of woman I was. He took his fingers — that’s the way he checked your features. And he could tell how you was built. Then he patted me on the shoulder to see what sort of made woman I was. But he had the smoothest hands. They were not a bit rough. Larry took Pop’s hand and put it on my belly and said, ‘See here, Pop.'”

Pat said she met Mona later that day.

“Mona came over the next day after I got here — her and her husband and her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law. Sometime after that, Mona came over and was playing a mandolin and her and Mom was playing. Mom played me some English tunes. And I don’t know how come they played but they got Pop to play a tune or two and he wouldn’t play much because he had whittled on his fingers and made them raw. He always loved my salmon. Course he called them salmon cakes. I call them croquettes.”

In Search of Ed Haley 170

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Ashland, blind, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Farmers, immigration, Jim Brown, John Hartford, Kentucky, Lawrence Haley, Morehead, Pat Haley, writing

Early in March 1995, I fired up the Cadillac and drove the familiar road toward Ashland, Kentucky. After several hours of travel, I entered Rowan County — the place of Ella’s birth — and took the Farmers exit off of I-64. I wanted to get a closer look at Farmers, it being a place where Ella had lived, where Ralph was supposedly conceived, and where Lawrence remembered Ed playing for a dance. At one time, Farmers was the county’s largest town with 1,000 people. At the time of my visit, it was a small settlement, easily eclipsed by nearby Morehead.

A little later, I made my way into Morehead, a small college town with a curvy downtown business district and with most of its historical buildings torn down. It was somewhat disappointing. Triplett Creek, the Trumbo section of town, was dull and uninspiring. Small modern apartments replaced Ella’s old home place. Scenes of the Martin-Tolliver feud were long gone, removed to make way for a new road. At the college library, I found some interesting local history but nothing really pertaining to Ed and Ella’s story.

That evening, I arrived at Pat Haley’s home in Ashland. Pat was really down about Lawrence’s death and the progression of her daughter’s cancer. It was sad to be there – especially in the kitchen where Lawrence and I had spent so much time hashing out Ed’s music. Pat’s grandchildren were around frequently – especially David’s three daughters – but there was a great void in the house. I imagine it was a hundred-fold for Pat.

“We met August 14th, 1948, and he came back to America on November 5th,” she said of Lawrence. “We wrote to each other and I never saw him again until he came back to England and we met on Valentine’s Day, 1949. We married ten days later. I was almost eighteen. He was 21. I was staying with my sister in Hertfordshire, which is just on the outskirts of London. Larry came back to America in May, when he got out of the service. That’s when he told his mother he was married. Although she was writing to me, she didn’t know we were married. And she told him, ‘I suppose there’s a baby on the way.’ And he told her yes.

“I left England September 28th, 1949 on a Danish ship with a Polish crew. I was seven and a half months pregnant. It was a terrible experience. I went into false labor on the way over. The doctor was Polish and I never did understand a word the man said except ‘Haley.’ Had Beverly been born on that ship she could have claimed nationality to any country because we were in international waters. I got in this country on October 6th after eight days of choppy water. Larry met me in New York. We come past Staten Island and Ellis Island. I couldn’t see Larry on the dock but bless his heart he didn’t know he had to get a docking pass. He was stuck up at the barrier and here were all these people getting off the ship. And there was Larry in civilian clothes. It was the first time I’d seen Larry in civilian clothes. And one of the immigration officers said, ‘Why, he’s just a little boy.’

“We spent ten days in New York. Part of my luggage was lost and we were having some problem with some papers Larry should have gotten done. I didn’t know his parents were blind until we were in New York. I asked Larry what his mother thought of the pictures that he had given her of him and I, and he said, ‘She hasn’t seen them.’ And I said, ‘Why not?’ and he said, ‘She can’t see them. She’s blind.’ And I said, ‘Well, what did your dad think of them?’ And he said, ‘He’s blind, too.’

“We stayed in New York till October 16th. Just before we left, we had enough to buy a Spam sandwich and two apples in the bus station. He gave me the sandwich. It took us 24 hours to get from New York to Ashland. I got deathly sick on that bus ride. It was twist and turn over those mountains. It was about midnight when we got into Ashland and we had three cents in our pocket. Jack thought we would be there in the afternoon so he and Jim Brown had gone to the bus station and looked for us. They were drinking. Well, when we didn’t show up — I think it was between six and eight o’clock — they went back to the house. The bus station was located at 13th Street between Winchester and Carter Avenue. His parents lived at 1040 Greenup Avenue. So we walked and carried our suitcases and I had high heels on. We walked about six blocks — three down and three across.”

In Search of Ed Haley 169

10 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Alva Greene, Brandon Kirk, Ed Haley, fiddling, Fred B. Lambert, Huntington, J P Fraley, John Hartford, Kentucky, Lawrence Kirk, music, Pat Haley, writing

Not long after talking with Patsy, while on a trip through Kentucky, I visited J.P. Fraley. I had Ed’s fiddle with me, which excited J.P. greatly. He fiddled Haley’s version of “Granny Will Your Dog Bite?” as best as he could remember it and said Ed used to sing:

Granny, will your dog bite, dog bite, dog bite?

Granny will your dog bite? “No, child, no.”

Granny will your dog bite, dog bite, dog bite?

“Johnny cut his biter off a long time ago.”

He said Ed also used to play “Hunky Dory”.

Between tunes, J.P. talked about how Haley was the top fiddler in his section of Kentucky. “Daddy and Alva Greene and Doctor Sparks and Frank Clay, Drew Crockett — reputable fiddlers, I called them — ever chance they got, they’d go listen to Ed Haley. He was the yardstick of the fiddlers in this whole area.”

J.P. said, “I’ve kept something for years, buddy. I’ve got a fiddle bridge of Ed Haley’s. I don’t know what it’s made out of.”

Apparently, when he borrowed the Haley fiddle from the Holbrooks years ago, he had kept a little memento before returning it.

In the next couple of weeks, I finalized plans for another “Ed Haley trip.” Pat Haley said I could stay at her place in Ashland, while Lawrence Kirk said I was welcome to stay with him in West Virginia. I called Brandon Kirk, the Harts genealogist, and arranged to meet him at the Morrow Library in Huntington. There he said we would have a lot of genealogical material at our fingertips, as well as all the room we needed to sort through our books and old photographs. I was very interested in the Lambert Collection, which he said was full of local historical information.

In Search of Ed Haley 168

08 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Allie Trumbo, Cincinnati, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Harts Creek, history, Imogene Haley, Liza Mullins, Mona Haley, Patsy Haley, Ralph Haley, West Virginia, writing

After getting familiar with the postcards, I called Patsy Haley to see if she could tell me any more about Ella’s young life with Ralph.

“Ralph was about five years old when Mom married Ed Haley,” Patsy said. “Ralph is not by Ed Haley. I figure that Mom and Pop must’ve got married about the end of the teens.”

I asked Patsy if Ed was very close to Allie Trumbo, who often wrote to Ella in her younger days.

“They weren’t really close or anything like that,” she said. “My husband and I moved to Cincinnati and that’s when I got acquainted with Allie and his wife. In fact, we lived right across the street from them. They really didn’t talk too much. Allie used to tell me about their father Mr. Trumbo auctioning off land and selling it for a dollar ’cause he owned quite a bit of land by that college. I think Mom had a falling out with him. Mom used to go and stay with them, like on weekends, when she’d go to Cincinnati to work. Allie had called her ‘Penny Ella’ ’cause when she paid them for staying with them she always paid them with change ’cause that’s what Mom got from selling her newspapers.”

Was Allie a musician?

“No, not that I know of,” Patsy said. “He was a fine pool player.”

Patsy didn’t remember Ralph making the records.

“No, that was just before I come in the family,” she said. “I don’t think he did any more recordings after I came into the family. You know, Mom had divorced when I come in the family and they never got remarried. But he lived in the house because the kids wanted him there. Now I can remember when I first came in the family and Mona and I talked, she was quite afraid of her father when she was a little girl because I guess he must’ve been mean. And he musta been abusive and mean to Mom or she wouldn’t a divorced him. But he was a sweet old guy when I knew him. I never ever saw Pop drunk or drinking. But I do remember one time — it was at the holidays — and Noah took his father and went up to Ferguson’s I believe for Pop to play music for them. Well, he kept them out all night ’cause I guess he got pretty loaded. But I never ever saw Pop drink. Now Pat said she had, but I never had.”

I updated Patsy on some of the things I’d found out about Ed’s past on Harts Creek and asked if she knew anything about his mother.

“He really didn’t talk about her too much,” she said. “Only thing that I understood — and he didn’t tell me this — Mom told me — that she was killed when the father was killed. There was never no bad feelings about his parents, either one.”

Patsy said she learned more about Ed’s parents on a trip to Harts in 1947.

“We went up to Harts Creek because Pop had gone up there and we went to get him back,” she said. “That was the first time I met Aunt Liza.”

Aunt Liza said Milt came from “the other side of the mountain,” and that he and his wife were buried up behind their old log cabin on Trace Fork.

“I can remember Aunt Liza pointing to where they were buried,” she said. “When she pointed up, she pointed over towards where the log cabin was.”

In Search of Ed Haley 166

06 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Allie Trumbo, Ella Haley, Florida, history, Kentucky, life, Luther Trumbo, Mont Spaulding, Morehead, Ohio, Plant City, Portsmouth, writing

Ella was in Morehead as late as June 1911, where she received a card from “C.E.G.” reading, “I am living high. I go riding every day with my friend, Mrs. Mell Washington.”

Later in the fall of 1911, Ella was once again at 115 Woodland Avenue in Lexington, Kentucky. While there, one card was sent to her reading, “Well Ella, I got your card. Was glad to hear you Was all Well. Luther is Still here. Will Stay till you come home.”

Ella was back in Morehead by July 1912, where she received a card from Mont and Jim Spaulding postmarked in Richmond, Virginia. I wondered, was this the Mont Spaulding who was blind and played the fiddle around Kermit, West Virginia? In September, Mont and Dora Spaulding wrote her from Charleston, West Virginia: “hello Ella. Did you get the card I send you from Va?”

“M. Spaulding” wrote to her again in November (although in a totally different handwriting), this time from Norton, Virginia. “It might be possible that my Daughter and I will see you about the last of this month.” The Spauldings apparently made the trip because Dora wrote Ella early in December, again from Charleston: “certainly did enjoy my short stay in your town.”

Ella’s postcards for the first part of 1913 were primarily from her brother Luther and were postmarked from Asheville, Knoxville, and Indianapolis.

In May, some friends sent her a postcard that read: “We would like very much for you to come up Sat. night and play for us. Come to stay all night if you can. Let us know if you will come.” At that time, Ella’s address was Clearfield, Kentucky, but she was in Morehead briefly the next month.

In September, she was in Farmers, Kentucky — her location when she became pregnant with Ralph. While in Farmers, she received a card from “Sissie” postmarked in Hitchins, Kentucky, reading “I am so Lonesome.”

In May of 1914, Allie and Texana wrote her in care of C.D. Davis.

“We are keeping house here in West Morehead and want you to come up and See us at once So Bring your Harp and harp rack with you So we can have some music So let us know When you are coming and we will meet you.”

In August 1914 Allie wrote to her in care of R.A. Thomas from Loveland, Kentucky.

“Well, Ella, I am thinking about getting married Sometime. I think I will and then I change my mind.”

In the next several months, Ella moved from Farmers to 1124 Gay Street in Portsmouth, Ohio. At that location, which is now a DMV parking lot, she received frequent postcards from a mysterious “R.B.” in Plant City, Florida. Only two of the cards were postmarked. In June of 1915, R.B. wrote: “Well, the Sun is Getting hot as H. Down hear.” In August: “I am at Cincinnati to Night But Don’t know whear I will Be to morrow.”

None of the remaining cards from R.B. are postmarked, making it impossible to arrange them chronologically. Here are some of the more interesting ones:

“My Dear friend. You Do Eny Thing with The money you want to. I will Try and Send you Some more wedensday if nothing happens. Don’t forget your Florida friend.”

“This is Tuesday Eve, and no Letter yet. Don’t no what to think if you are mad Rite and tell me what you got mad about. I am going to Kentucky next week.”

“Dear friend, I am Disipointed this Evening By Not getting a Letter. Hoping you haven’t Forgotten me.”

“I will Rite you a few Lines as I promest you. I guess you wish I wood quit Riting So much. Yes, Ella I wood Bee more Then Pleased to get That Picture we was talking about. I am Sorrow you are not well. Say Ella if you can Rite to me three times a week as I am So Lonesom hear. you have no Idea what I have to put up with.”

“I am going to do the Best I can till I can get away But what Ever you Do Don’t change Bording houses. Now you may think I am crazy But I no what I am talking about. I will Rite a Point Letter the first chance I have hoping to hear from you again Soon.”

“Yes Ella I guess you are tard of hearing that word Some Day But Don’t get worried I am going to Do the Best I can.”

“I am so Proud you think of me as often as you Do for I am so Lonesom hear.”

“I think you ort to Rite oftener Then you Do. Please tell me why you Don’t. I am worrying my Life away Faster Then Eny one on Earth. So Rite and cheer me up all you can.”

“This Leaves me feeling Bad This Evening. I was Expectin a Letter But got Disipointed. I will Start you That money Saturday if Nothing happens.”

“Why Don’t you Rite oftener. this is Tuesday Evening and I haven’t had a Letter since Saturday. I guess you are about to Forget me.”

“Some one Swears Thay are going Back to Ky. and I wood Be glad to get Rid of Them So keep quite.”

“Yes, Ella I am going to come Back Soon. I want to get a way From hear By the 20^th of July if I can. Ella I can’t tell you wheather or not Maudie and Vada Noes eny thing about what. Guess at the Rest.”

“Say Ella the theater is Right By the Post office hear and the Piano is Playing Silver threads among the Gold. you can guess how I feal. I get so nervous Some times I can’t hardly Liv.”

In Search of Ed Haley 165

05 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Allie Trumbo, Ella Haley, genealogy, history, Kentucky, Kentucky School for the Blind, life, Lula Lee, Luther Trumbo, Morehead, S.H. Childers, U.S. South, writing

When I got back in Nashville, I arranged all of Ella’s postcards into chronological order in the hopes of discovering some new revelation. Most of the cards were dated between 1908-1918, the years immediately prior to her marriage to Ed. Individually they carried only short messages from family and friends, but together they formed an interesting story line detailing events from Ella’s “single years.”

Ella was at the Kentucky School for the Blind in Louisville throughout the first part of 1908. She returned home to Morehead during her summer break, where friends wrote her fondly from Louisville, Nashville, Richmond, and Paducah. There was one card from “Bridget” – probably the same one that Lawrence remembered his mother visiting in Mt. Healthy, Ohio.

“Suppose you think I have forgotten you but think of you every day,” the card read. “Company season has started in and we are having plenty of visitors. Wish you were one. Your cousin Lula is expecting to go West for her health. She was much grieved to hear of the death of Aunt Henrette. Answer soon with love.”

In June of 1909, Ella received a card from “Loula Lee” in Denison, Texas. This was no doubt the same Lula Lee who Lawrence Haley had remembered playing music on the streets of Ashland at the same time as his parents, likely the same person as “cousin Lula” referenced in other cards.

“Hello Ella how are you,” Loula wrote. “all wright I hope. Got out here all right and I like Very Well. It is hot as Summer out here.”

There was also a card from Nellie Motts in South Portsmouth, Ohio.

“I rec’d your card a few days ago and was very glad to hear from you. I am having a delightful vacation. How did you enjoy the Fourth?”

Then this from “Mabel” in Mississippi: “I am away down in the Sunny South. Awful warm weather. I will be glad to get back to Kentucky.”

Ella was back in Louisville that fall where her brother Allie Trumbo sent several cards to her.

“Luther is at home now,” one read. “Please write within 23 hours this time.”

Luther was Ella’s other brother and a future soldier in World War I.

“Hello Allie,” she responded. “It seems as though you keep the road hot sending cards. Now I have written within 23 hours. What more do you bid me to do? The girls are waiting on you.”

Allie wrote back: “how is everything. We had a little rain last week. Please write within 22 hrs. I just got your letter out of the office and will write to you soon.”

“Thank you for the pretty card,” someone wrote from Providence, Rhode Island. “Am glad you are having a pleasant year. Be sure and do good work.”

More from Allie: “I couldn’t make out all of your card but I enjoy it very much. I will send you some cards of our town which will show the bridge and george’s house and part of grandmaw’s.”

“how are you?” one from someone named Cora in Morehead read. “We have biscuits this morning for breakfast and I am going to have fried potatoes for dinner and when I got your card last night we had beef steak.”

“You have been sending me the ugliest cards you can find,” Allie writes. “Try and do better. The creek was Higher than it ever was before Tuesday night.”

In November 1909, there was a “Forget-Me-Not” card from S.H. Childers postmarked in Hellier, Kentucky.

“I do insist on you sending me one of those pictures,” Childers wrote. “Never mind what it looks like.”

There were more from Childers, often signed, “Your lonely friend,” with passages reading, “I am not quite well now. Haven’t don any thing for two weeks. They tell me I am love sick but I don’t think that’s it.”

Bridget sent a Christmas card, signing her last name as Welsh, while another friend, “Flossie,” wrote a few months later.

“You may think I have forgotten you but indeed I have not,” she wrote. “Hope you are having a good time playing in the snow.”

In May 1910, Allie wrote from Portsmouth, Ohio.

“I came from Ashland on this Boat. We got here all O.K. and have got a job. Go to work Tuesday. I like to stay here.”

For the next several weeks, Ella received mail at 115 Woodland Avenue in Lexington, Kentucky. By June of 1910, she was back in Morehead. A card was sent there to “Miss Bridget Welsh & Miss Ella Trumbo” from Miss Henderson in Little Rock, Arkansas.

In July, there was another card reading, “Know you and Bridget are enjoying each others company.”

Late in August 1910 there was a card from “Aunt Anna” to Ella and Bridget: “arrived here all right. Am well and having a fine time. hope you are both enjoying good health.”

On September 7, “Oma” wrote: “Received your pretty card. I guess you will sure hate to see Bridget leave.”

Later in September was a card sent “With Fond Love” and stamped with a fanciful signature from S.H. Childress at the Sunset Ranch in Rhine, Washington.

“I have at last made up my mind to vacate Ky. and have done so. Will write you all a bout my future home when I get my slate.”

It seemed clear that this “S.H. Childress” was the same “S.H. Childers” who’d written Ella the previous fall. He wrote again in December.

“I believe is your first Xmas at home and I trust it will be the happiest you have ever spent.”

In Search of Ed Haley 162

30 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Bob Hutchison, Braxton County, Ed Haley, fiddler, Harold Postalwait, history, Ohio, Ray Alden, Ron Chacey, Ugee Postalwait, Ward Jarvis, West Virginia, writing

By the mid-1990s, after several years of research, word had begun to leak out about my interest in Ed Haley. Around the first of 1995, Bluegrass Unlimited ran a story that prompted Bob Hutchison, a musician from Alledonia, Ohio, to write me.

“I played with an old fella down in Athens county (Ward Jarvis) who had played a lot and learned a lot from Ed Haley,” he wrote. “He played banjo with Ed and learned a lot of his tunes when he was a young man. He said Ed was the best he’d ever seen. Ward was in his 70’s when I got to know him and he was no slouch himself on the fiddle. He said Ed was big on different tunings on the fiddle. I learned the Icy Mountain tune from Ward that he had learned from Ed. Other tunes I remember him crediting Ed with were Camp Chase, Jimmy Johnson, Three forks of Reedy. Banjo Tramp was another of Ed’s. Ward has been dead for several years… Ward was originally from Braxton Co. W.Va.”

Ray Alden offered more information about Jarvis.

“In 1972 I went to Amesville, Ohio to visit instrument craftsman Ron Chacey,” he wrote. “Ron, on a very foggy night, brought me through some hilly back roads up to see Ward Jarvis, who had moved to the area in 1943 from Braxton County, West Virginia. Ward was 78 years old. I remember that special evening in which Ward played many unusual tunes, such as ‘Icy mountain,’ as well as a Kenny Baker Tune he had just learned from a record. It was lucky, since I didn’t have a tape recorder that evening, that Richard Carlin later went to tape Ward Jarvis [in 1976]. Old time musicians Dana Loomis and Grey Larson joined Richard and accompanied Ward at that session. Ward’s source for ‘Banjo Tramp’ was Ed Haley, who had a substantial influence over the Ohio River Valley Musicians in Ward’s younger days.”

Ray Alden’s statement about how Ed influenced a number of “Ohio River Valley Musicians” made me realize that thinking of him as a “Kentucky fiddler” or even a “West Virginia fiddler” was inaccurate. Early on, I’d dismissed the “Kentucky” label used on the Parkersburg Landing album, since he was born and raised in Logan County, West Virginia, and spent a great deal of time in central West Virginia, a hub for great musicians. Also, Lawrence Haley once said that he preferred to think of his father as a West Virginia fiddler because of how he was treated in Ashland. But I had to think, especially after reading Ray Alden’s statement, that it would be best to refer to Haley (in geographical terms) as a middle Ohio River Valley fiddler (or maybe even a Guyandotte-Big Sandy Valley musician) since his sphere of influence wasn’t limited to a single state.

Sometime in the middle of January 1995, I met Ugee Postalwait’s son at one of my shows in Birmingham, Alabama. It was my first encounter with Harold Postalwait, a rather robust man — clean-shaven with a beer gut and decked out in a snap-up shirt, cowboy hat and boots shined to perfection. He showed me Laury Hicks’ fiddle and some old family photographs.

In Search of Ed Haley 161

28 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Ashland, Calhoun County, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, history, John Hartford, Kentucky, Laury Hicks, Manuel Martin, music, Ugee Postalwait, West Virginia, writing

After hanging up with Pat, I called Ugee Postalwait — Laury Hicks’ daughter in Akron, Ohio — to tell her about getting the picture of Ed from Maxine McClain. Ugee was full of energy. Her memory was obviously working in overdrive.

“I used to know all of them,” she said of the old musicians in her part of the country. “They was all to our house. They’d come from miles around to hear Dad play, especially when Ed was in the country. Maybe they’d stay two or three days at our house. I’d get up of a morning to look see who was in the house asleep and who all I was gonna have to cook breakfast for, when I was a girl growing up. The young men would sleep in the boys’ room and they’d sleep in the floor. Then they’d sleep four crossways in the bed, too. As I get old, I get to thinking about all of them and wonder how in the world my dad ever fed them all. I been a cooking ever since I was nine years old for workhands and people like that. One morning — I never will forget I wasn’t very old, then — got up and got breakfast. We’d had cabbage the day before for supper. A big pot of cabbage. And Ed and Ella was there. I never put cabbage on the table for breakfast. Ed looked at me and he said, ‘Ugee, what did you do with that cabbage last night?’ I said, ‘It’s in there.’ ‘Well why didn’t you put it on the table for breakfast?’ I said, ‘Well who eats cabbage for breakfast?’ He said, ‘I do.’ Now I never seen anyone eat such a mess of cabbage for breakfast. Him and Ella did. Ella said, ‘Oh, we always eat the same thing we had for supper.’ I never will forget that. From that time on, whatever was left over from supper, I’d warm it up, you know, and fix it for their breakfast ’cause they would eat it. They liked cabbage or kraut.”

Ugee really laughed telling about that, then started in with another tale.

“One time they was some Baileys there and I believe they was some of them McClain boys, and I was peeling tomatoes for supper — you know, slicing them and putting them on the plate — and I had a plate on one end [of the table] and one on the other end. And Manuel Martin was there too, and Commodore Cole. And I looked in both places and them tomatoes was gone. ‘What in the world? Some of them’s come in and hid my tomatoes.’ I looked out and Ed was standing there sitting on the walk — I never will forget — a laughing, and he said, ‘Wait till she finds out.’ I said, ‘Ed did you get them tomatoes in there?’ He said, ‘We ate every one of them.’ I said, ‘If I could find the plate, I’d break it over your head.’ That Commodore Cole, he said, ‘You wouldn’t dare do that.’ Ed said, ‘Don’t dare her too much, Commodore. I know her.’ And they was a eating them tomatoes as fast as I was a peeling them. Them ornery birds, I never will forget that.”

“The last time I ever seen Ed was at his house,” Ugee said. “He looked at me and he said, ‘Ugee, can you still make a rhubarb pie?’ I said, ‘Why lord yes, I reckon I can. Why?’ He said, ‘Well, I want a rhubarb pie.’ And I made four and I never seen no such eating as he done that evening, him and Ella, on them rhubarb pies while they was hot — with milk cream over them. I can see them yet. I went down to Ashland, Kentucky. They lived on 45th Street.”

In Search of Ed Haley 160

27 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Clyde Haley, family, feud, history, John Hartford, Lawrence Haley, Lawrence Kirk, life, Milt Haley, Mona Haley, Pat Haley, Tug River, writing

A few weeks later, I called Lawrence Kirk, whose ancestors had played various roles in the story of Milt Haley’s death. I hadn’t spoken with him for several months. We talked more about Milt Haley’s murder.

“Back in the old days, these people’d get into trouble here and they’d run backwards and forwards across that Tug River,” he said. “That was the state line and the law didn’t bother them. If you crossed the state line, you was safe. But they got the papers out and went over there and got Haley and McCoy. Inez is where they went to and got them. Yes, sir. They either came up Jenny’s Creek or Marrowbone Creek. See, they had horse trails all through these woods back in them days. They come right across Twelve Pole and down Henderson up there in the head of main Hart. Come right down and up what they call the Bill Branch — some people calls it the Hugh Dingess Branch — right down Piney Fork. It’s a straight shoot through there. I’ll tell you what. Come up sometime when you’ve got a day or two and we can drive right through there.”

Boy, that sure sounded good to me.

In the meantime, Pat kept me up on everything. She said Mona was helping her look after Lawrence and had even spent the night. Clyde had come in for Christmas.

“They had a red hat on him and a great big sign across the front which said ‘Clyde.’ They had a pair of pants that was rolled over about three times tops, the shoes was way too big, and, I mean, it was sad. The hat was red, his sweater was blue, and his shoes was white. Mona said they got half-way home from Cincinnati, and he was just talking away, you know, about things that had happened in their past, and then he began looking out the window and all of a sudden he turned around and he said, ‘Who in the hell are you?’ And she thought, ‘Uh, oh, it’s gonna be good.’ Larry was very happy to see him.”

In Search of Ed Haley 159

26 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Appalachia, blind, Ed Haley, feud, fiddling, history, Kentucky, Lawrence Haley, Milt Haley, Mona Haley, music, U.S. South, writing

In one of those “passing the torch moments,” Lawrence reached the telephone to his sister, Mona. I told her about Milt Haley being a fiddler, and she said, “Really? Well we didn’t never know that.”

I figured that Ed had kept all of the details about Milt hidden from his kids, but Mona said, “Well, he talked about it some, because I wouldn’t know what I know about it if he hadn’t. You did find out what I told you was true, didn’t you? It wasn’t my dad’s mother that was killed, the way I heard it. It was one of the Hatfield women. Got half her face shot away and it killed her. That’s why they retaliated against Green McCoy and my grandfather. That’s only hearsay, but it had to come from Pop. I do remember him saying that.”

Pat seemed pleased that Mona was visiting Lawrence.

“He asks for her a lot,” she said.

I wanted to know more about Lawrence’s condition.

“He sits with his eyes closed and he found a pair of sunglasses that look exactly like the ones his daddy wore,” Pat said. “These are a pair that one of the kids bought. They were laying on the dining room table and he picked them up and said, ‘There’s my glasses.’ He insists on wearing them and you would think it was Ed Haley back many years ago. He talks about horse and buggies a lot. He sits with your book constantly. He does not like to look at the picture of his mother’s tombstone. What keeps you in his mind a lot, he listens to the tapes and he knows he gave you the records. Beverly was here this past weekend. He knew who she was but he was still talking in riddles. But today he’s pretty much himself. He got up and got dressed about 5:30 and he’s been roaming ever since.”

In Search of Ed Haley 158

25 Sunday Aug 2013

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Appalachia, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, fiddling, history, Lawrence Haley, Mona Haley, music, writing

I called Lawrence and Pat to tell them about this new discovery. Pat put me on the telephone with Lawrence, who seemed to be doing better. I asked him why he thought none of the Haley kids ever learned the fiddle.

“I think Pop took interest in us as far as he knew how to take interest in us,” he said. “Whatever he could’ve taught us he most certainly would have. But we’d ruther be out running in the woods than sitting at a table trying to learn ‘Forks of Sandy’ or something like that. He would ruther teach it to the ones who could and who showed interest in it, and let it go at that. Pop never did try to get me to learn the fiddle because I was left-handed. I guess he figured that would be too much of a challenge for him even, to try to teach violin to a left-handed violin player.”

I told Lawrence he knew more about the fiddle than a lot of professional musicians and he said, “Well, I guess I learned just about as much of it as he did. I appreciate any good words that can be said about me and the violin. My sister’s here and if you could get her interested, she might be able to tell you as much about it as I can. She took more interest in the music of our mother, I know that. But she could pick up the fiddle and play the fiddle and play the mandolin and the piano and other instruments.”

Lawrence said, “Now if you want to talk to my sister a minute, maybe she can tell you something. If she can’t, I don’t know who else to tell you. She could probably tell you as much about it as any of us.”

In Search of Ed Haley 157

24 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley

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Appalachia, Ashland, Brandon Kirk, Ed Haley, Fred B. Lambert, Green Shoal, history, Lincoln County Crew, Marshall University, Milt Haley, Sam Vinson Harold, Tom Ferrell, writing

Around that time, I received a very important letter in the mail from Brandon Kirk, the Harts genealogist. “Here are some documents pertaining to your research which I found in the F.B. Lambert Collection here at Marshall University,” he wrote. “There is a good chance that there may be more references in the collection regarding old time fiddlers.” Along with Brandon’s note was a single photocopied page of an interview with someone named Sam Vinson Harold on February 22, 1951. “Ed Haley was originally from Kentucky, about Ashland,” Lambert wrote. “I think he is living yet. Milt Haley, Blind Ed’s father, was a great fiddler. Some one shot him, on his porch, at mo. of Green Shoals.” Harold claimed to have penned the tune about Milt Haley’s death, “The Lincoln County Crew”, with someone named Tom Ferrell. This interview — while small in content — was a great find because it was the first solid reference that Milt was a fiddler, which meant Ed would’ve had music around in his childhood and could’ve possibly even begun learning to play by watching him.

Brandon Ray Kirk

~ This site is dedicated to the collection, preservation, and promotion of history and culture in my section of Appalachia.

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